In this July 31, 2012, file photo, an employee works on a Passat sedan at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn. / Associated Press

Written by

Matt Patterson

They are a tax one must often pay for the privilege of working, just as a tax is something one must pay for the privilege of doing business.

Taxes are imposed by the government (and in theory) are necessary to pay for the daily operations of the government. Dues are required by a union to pay for the alleged benefits of representation.

We can all see what we get for our taxes: garbage pickup, police/military protection, mail delivery, etc. But what is it exactly that union members get for their “work tax” (dues)?

Take the UAW. Its members are required to pay two hours’ pay per month for hourly workers or 1.15% of monthly salary for salaried workers. And UAW President Bob King has announced plans to raise dues on its members by 25%, the first such hike since 1967.

What will that mean for the average worker? The most recent contract between GM and the UAW stipulates a maximum starting pay for entry-level workers of $19.28 per hour. That’s $578.40 per year that will be plucked from the pockets of these workers and deposited into the coffers of the UAW.

And what do workers get for paying this work tax? Better wages? No — in fact, entry-level and even top-tier wages at unionized companies like General Motors are comparable to, and in some cases even lower than, those found in nonunionized companies like Volkswagen or Mercedes-Benz.

Job security? Not quite — as a Reuters analysis reminds us, “almost every job lost at U.S. car factories in the last 30 years has occurred at a unionized company,” while nonunionized car companies are creating thousands of jobs throughout the South.

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A voice? Please. When unions say they give workers a “voice,” what they really mean is that they force workers to surrender their voice. In a nonunion facility like Mercedes in Vance, Ala., any worker with any problem can feel free to speak with his or her supervisor directly to work out solutions suitable to both parties. In a union shop the union — and only the union — has the right to negotiate with the employer, thanks to a government mandated and enforced labor monopoly.

Know what else workers don’t get for their dues? All the other things they could buy with their $578.40. That’s approximately 158 gallons of gas at $3.67 per gallon. Or airfare for two from Detroit to Orlando for a five-day stay in Walt Disney World this coming summer.

Or for those who want to stay in Detroit this summer, $578 would pay for electricity to air-condition their homes from June through September, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

So we know what the workers could do with their money if they kept it, but what is the union doing with it now that they have taken it?

The UAW spent an estimated $5 million in its two-year campaign to organize the Volkswagen facility in Chattanooga, Tenn. The union lost. Was that a wise way to spend its members’ money? Even if the union had won in Chattanooga, how would that have profited its members in Detroit?

It is time we started calling union dues for what they are, an additional tax on our already overtaxed workforce. Unlike government-imposed taxes, however, some lucky workers are not obliged to pay the union work tax: in right-to-work states, you can opt out of paying union dues.

Michigan is now a right-to-work state. Soon its autoworkers will have the option to keep their money, to use it to feed their children and heat their homes instead of lining the pockets of union bosses.